L'Étrange Monsieur Victor (1937)
Directed by Jean Grémillon

Film Review

After the success of Gueule d'amour (1937), director Jean Grémillon immediately notched up a second hit with L'Étrange Monsieur Victor (1937), an altogether darker and more complex film which casts a probing and slightly cynical eye over man's dual nature.  The only one of Grémillon's films that can properly be termed a film noir (by virtue of its bleak subject matter and strikingly noirish composition), L'Étrange Monsieur Victor offers a compelling study in evil.  More than that, it questions the extent to which individuals are capable of personal redemption; it seems to conclude that there are essentially two categories of people - the good and the bad - and that those who are born bad stay bad, come what may.  Had the film been made just a few years later, in the dark days of the Nazi Occupation, it is unlikely that it would have had such a positive reception.  Indeed, it might very well have been banned for its deeply pessimistic assessment of human nature.

That Jean Grémillon's films are not as well-known or as well-regarded today as those of his contemporaries (Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, Marcel Pagnol, etc.) is less a reflection of his aptitude for filmmaking and has more to do with the director's failure to sustain his penchant for making films of public interest after a promising but brief flourish in the late 1930s, early 1940s.  Posterity has not been kind to Grémillon and so even some of his greatest films, of which L'Étrange Monsieur Victor is assuredly one, are too easily overlooked and all but forgotten except by his admirers.  The two essential characteristics of Grémillon's films are their psychological depth and the importance of the location in shaping the story and reflecting the personality of the characters within it.  L'Étrange Monsieur Victor is set, appropriately, in the busy port of Toulon, a town whose constantly changing climate matches the shifting moods of the protagonists, and whose narrow streets, shadow-laden with menace after nightfall, evoke the darker side of the central character.

For the part of the mysterious, multi-faceted Monsieur Victor, Grémillon could not have selected a more suitable, nor more accomplished, actor than Raimu, one of the biggest stars of French cinema at the time.  Having won acclaim for his performance in Marcel Pagnol's 1929 stage production of Marius, Raimu soon made a name for himself in cinema, most notably in the three films of Pagnol's Marseille Trilogy, but also in a raft of popular comedies, including as Les Gaietés de l'escadron (1932) and Tartarin de Tarascon (1934).  The part of Monsieur Victor was a gift for Raimu and was to be one of the most challenging of his career.  Needless to say, he acquits himself with a performance of exceptional quality.  Few actors of this era could portray the two sharply contrasting sides of Victor's personality as convincingly as Raimu, nor convey with such subtlety the conflicting emotions that overtake the character in the film's more dramatic moments.  Raimu would deliver some superb performances after this film - for example in Pagnol's La Femme du boulanger (1938) and  René Le Hénaff's Le Colonel Chabert (1943) - but this must surely rate as one of the absolute highpoints of his illustrious career.

Playing alongside Raimu are two other notable actors of the period - Pierre Blanchar, another remarkably versatile and gifted actor, and Madeleine Renaud, a talented actress and personal favourite of Grémillon who was particularly well suited for playing ordinary, good-natured working-class women.  Whilst their characters are far less interesting than Raimu's, and offer somewhat less opportunity for viewer identification, Blanchar and Renaud succeed in making them well-rounded and believable, their inherent goodness and simplicity serving to amplify the venality and deviousness of Raimu's character.  The supporting cast includes some other distinguished performers - Viviane Romance, Andrex, Charles Blavette, Edouard Delmon - each perfectly suited for his or her role.  With such an ensemble of acting talent, each making the most of a flawless screenplay from Marcel Achard and Charles Spaak, L'Étrange Monsieur Victor could hardly fail to be one of Grémillon's most polished and compelling films, surpassed only by his subsequent masterpiece Lumière d'été (1943).

Film Synopsis

No one would guess that the respectable Toulon shopkeeper Monsieur Victor is leading a double life.  Who would think that this apparent model citizen, a devoted husband and scrupulously honest man of business, could possibly be mixed up in crime?  But that is Monsieur Victor's dark secret.  At night, he throws away the mantle of respectability and mixes with the town's criminal fraternity, highly proficient in his second trade as a receiver of stolen goods.   Of course, Victor cannot allow his secret to be discovered, and so when one of his crooked associates threatens to expose him he has no choice but to resort to murder.  In a moment of madness, he grabs hold of a shoemaker's implement and hastily disposes of a dangerous enemy with it.

How relieved Monsieur Victor is when the murder is blamed on his neighbour Bastien, a shoemaker.  With Bastien away serving a ten year stretch in prison, Victor feels it is his duty to attend to the needs of his infant son.  He manages to assuage his conscience by making frequent gifts of money to Bastien's wife Adrienne, but it soon becomes apparent that this stupid, selfish woman is ill-equipped to bring up the child by herself.  Victor's crime finally catches up with him when Bastien escapes from prison and turns to him for help.  It isn't long before the ill-used shoemaker uncovers the truth and realises his supposed friend's true nature.  The time has come for the strange Monsieur Victor to show the world who he really is...